Sword in hand, Kian leapt to his feet. Hazad ran toward Ishin. Azuri produced a gleaming dagger. Most of the Asra a’Shah dragged their great scimitars free, while the rest hastily strung their bows. Fenahk rushed forward far more quickly than his previously shambling gait had suggested was possible. Ishin was the first to die.
With a demonic roar, Fenahk’s mouth gaped wide, shredding his cheeks and revealing a bloody, slavered maw full of slanting ebon teeth. Ishin screamed when that mouth snapped closed over his neck and shoulder. There came a gruesome crunching noise as those teeth sank deep and ground together. Ishin’s shrieks drowned out all other sound. Fenahk shook Ishin back and forth like dog worrying a rat, then cast him aside. The Asra a’Shah rolled limply in death, torn nearly in half.
As the Geldainians closed, the thing that had been Fenahk spread wide its arms. The saffron robe, and the flesh beneath those robes, tore apart in a spray of gore. The creature did not so much grow in size, as burst forth from weak constraints. Old flesh fell away to expose a creature of thick and twisted bones, freakish slabs of muscle, and blood-red skin covered in needle-like spines. The demonic beast straightened to its full height of at least twelve feet, and bellowed with a sound like a falling mountain.
A mercenary swung his scimitar in a deadly sidestroke, but the razor-edged steel managed only a thin slice before exploding like glass. The creature’s six-fingered hand flashed out in a blur of motion, impaling the Geldainian on dagger-length talons. It swept the dying man aside even as it came forward to meet the next attacker.
A wild-faced Hazad stopped midstride and spun to retrieve his bow. Azuri, eyes narrowed in concentration, cocked his arm and, in a blur, brought it forward. His dagger flew true, striking the creature’s chest, penetrating but an inch, before falling way. Azuri looked at the bent blade for the barest moment, then called, “Back, you fools!”
The mercenaries did not heed him. Nor did Kian. He raced past Azuri, who tried but failed to grab his arm. Kian came in low, thinking nothing, acting instinctively. His mind afire with purpose, his emotions cold and unfeeling as ice, he attacked. With his blade held before him like a short spear, he rammed it into the creature’s groin, the weakest point of any enemy. Where other steel had shattered or bent, his sword struck with a flare of blue fire that seemed to originate from his own hand. His steel sank deep with a horrid screech of metal scraping over bone. The creature threw its head back and let out a bloodcurdling scream. Kian’s eyes watered, and his ears felt as if they would burst. Teeth bared, he wrenched the sword free, just as a freakish hand thrice the size of a man’s swung at his head. He ducked away, just missing being decapitated, and fell into a graceless roll.
The Asra a’Shah had paused at Kian’s unexpected attack, but now they redoubled their efforts, their swords shattering or clanging against inhuman flesh, leaving only small wounds. Arrows from farther back shrieked through the smoky air, deadly true. To the last, each bolt exploded in a rain of splinters, as if having been fired at stone. One man went down, his head nearly torn from his neck by raking talons. Another instantly filled the gap in the circle of warriors, but fell an instant later, his innards spilling from a ragged gash in his belly. Despite their disadvantage, the Geldainian mercenaries continued their assault, effectively keeping the creature’s attention off Kian.
Kian scrambled to his feet, drawing his dagger to compliment his sword. He stabbed the shorter blade into the creature’s thigh, and again, blue flame erupted from his hands, traveled the length of the blade, and surged into the beast’s flesh. His sword came up as the creature bowed its great height. Glimmering black eyes, lifeless as that of a creature dragged from the deepest sea, focused on Kian. He instantly sent his sword into one of them. Thick, scalding ichor poured from the wound, forcing Kian to dance back without his weapon.
With blurring speed, the thing that had been Fenahk caught Kian in one of its enormous hands and drew him close. Kian tensed every muscle, sensing some queer energy rippling through him, a force that resisted the long claws pricking his skin-claws that should have shredded him. Slaver dripped from massive teeth onto Kian’s upturned face. His hands shot out, catching hold of two of those fangs. He pushed against them to avoid being torn asunder. The tip of his sword, covered in black fluid, jutted from the top of the creature’s massive head. Such a wound should have been mortal, but Kian sensed only the swift approach of his own death.
Rage filled his mind, bringing with it the cold fury of a winter storm scouring the barren ice fields of his homelands. With the only weapon left to him, he bellowed his defiance into the face of his doom. The creature abruptly drew back, as if in pain. It loosed its own deafening howl, and Kian howled with it, that sense of inexplicable power surging through him, seeking escape. Their combined voices rose higher, wordless cries filling the night. Asra a’Shah staggered back, gaping in shock.
As the twin bellows rose higher still, a dark mass of oily smoke oozed out of the creature’s face, which seemed to be dissolving before Kian’s eyes. He ceased his wild shout, arching backward to avoid the foul touch of those greasy tendrils. The creature suddenly hurled him away. Kian flipped through the air, weightless and tumbling until he hit the ground. He rolled and skidded, bouncing along like a skipping stone, halting only after he struck the base of a tree.
He leapt up, casting about for something with which to strike the hell-spawned nightmare. Before he could find a weapon, Hazad was there, one big hand on each of Kian’s shoulders, shaking him. “It’s over. Whatever you did, it worked. That thing is gone. It … melted.”
Kian shook his head, clearing the battle rage, thawing the iced blood in his veins. He abruptly stopped trying to get loose of Hazad’s grasp. “How?” he asked, breathless, not sure exactly what had happened.
“We can worry about that later,” Azuri said. “Unless you want to wait around here for another one of those demons to show up?”
“Demon?” Kian rasped. “Only in children’s tales can demons escape the bounds of the Thousand Hells.” To his own ears, the explanation sounded hollow, for as hard as it was to believe, what else besides a demon could the creature have been? And had he not himself considered the same when those monstrous, vaporous shapes had escaped the temple with Varis?
Gingerly holding each weapon by its hilt, Azuri handed over Kian’s sword and dagger with a look of more than passing curiosity. The blades were covered in a rank wetness that Kian could only name blood, though it was thicker than any he had ever seen, and black besides. As he set to wiping them clean, Azuri elaborated in a rational tone.
“If that was not a demon escaped from Geh’shinnom’atar, then we are all mad. While I concede that a group of men might all go insane at once, it is doubtful that we would all suffer the same vision.”
Hazad gulped his jagdah. In most things the big man was fearless, yet now his eyes were feral. “What if those living shadows at the temple with Varis were demon spirits, as well?”
Azuri shook his head with a troubled look. “Some old stories claim that demons can possess a man, and remake them. Fenahk, whatever he became, seems to prove that.”
“Gods good and wise, what did that fool boy bring on us?” Hazad snarled. “And how did he do it?”
“I do not know,” Azuri said. “Whether by his deeds or another’s, it would appear that Geh’shinnom’atar has been breached.”
Kian held his sword up for inspection, found it clean, and slid into the scabbard. “I do not recall any stories ever saying a man could kill a demon with steel,” he said. “Nor do I recall ever hearing that the gates of the Thousand Hells were located in a tumbledown temple within the Qaharadin.” He set to scrubbing the dagger.